Commerce

Local Impacts on Economy

In the Philippines, about 20% of coconuts produced are consumed locally. Coconuts tend to be among the top agricultural products of the Philippines. Thus, it is unquestionable that the coconut industry is a significant part of the Philippines' agricultural output and thus plays a crucial role in its economy.

"Major producers of coconut in the Philippines include the regions of CALABARZON, Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao, and Northern Mindanao." [2] Because of that, coconut production plays a significant role in the economic success of these regions on a local scale.

Domestic Trade

In 2022 "The sharp decline in prices was due to the improved supply of vegetable oils in the global market which causes a domino effect to the domestic prices. The pressure was basically due to the peak production season for palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil accounts 40% of the global vegetable oils supply, thus, it greatly affects the prices of other vegetable oils that likewise causes the decrease in domestic prices of copra and vegetable oils." [1] This shift in oil prices heavily affected the coconut industry in the Philippines as the number one coconut-related export is crude coconut oil.

Domestic consumption accounts for "0.835 million metric tons" (2015) [2], which is only slightly more than half of the amount destined for international shipping at "1.49 million tons" (2015) [4] It is important to note that this is for raw product and domestic consumption also includes local coco-product producers who will then go on and export much of the products that they make.

Foreign Trade

Foreign trade makes up much of the economic gain of coconut production as the Philippines role in the global food production chain is as a producer of raw products "Local exports include up to PhP 11.4M" [2] On Average, the "Coconut industry contributes to 35% share to the country’ total agricultural exports" [1] though "In CY 2022," . . . "Total coconut exports earnings accounted 43% of the country’s total agricultural exports" [1] a marginal increase from previous years. In 2022, "due to a supply glut of vegetable oils in the global market in the 2nd semester of the year"(related to the Russia-Ukrain conflict) . . . "a 39.5% negative growth rate" [1] coconut exports was found. Yet, it remained one of the country's top ten exports (the only one on that list to be an agricultural export). This micro trend might explain part of the

Most coconut imports to the Philippines are associated with coconut chemical products or oils rather than raw products at "64.29% of the total import volume " [1]. This makes sense as a high-volume producer of raw coconut products likely doesn't need to import raw coconut products.

The Philippines also exports a lot of activated carbon, one of the world's highest exports. Still additionally, the country imported "3,173.20 MT of AC valued at about 2.79 million USD" [1], mostly from countries that don't use coconut-based activated carbon.

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